Le club Accorhotels frequently offers their top tier elite status just for signing up with the program, they’ll market it to a specific group of potential customers but anyone using the offer winds up able to sign up and get the status. Here’s the latest signup link it could be around for a day, days, or weeks so if interested sign up soon. Even if you don’t frequently stay at Sofitel, Novotel, Pullman, Mercure, and other related properties frequently, you never know when you might find yourself in one and having top tier status can’t hurt. Platinum status usually requires 60 nights or 25,000 points earned. It offers double points and at Sofitel, Pullman and MGallery hotels a complimentary drink and welcome gift, and subject to availability and on request 4pm late checkout and an…
About Gary Leff
Calling American to Task: Why Randy Petersen and I Disagree on AwardWallet
In the section on questions for Randy Petersen in the August issue of Inside Flyer (subscription required), there’s a shout out to my award booking service. I’m flattered, and therefore should be gracious enough to simply say thank you. Instead, I read on and found the next question for Randy troublesome. A reader asked about why websites like TripIt are no longer allowed to access American AAdvantage account information. Randy replies, Of course they care, which is why they have begun to enforce a policy that has long been in their rules and conditions. Let’s back up a bit. American AAdvantage was not the first airline to put a stop to this sort of access–that distinction belongs to the Southwest Rapid Rewards program. And while it might seem that those Texas-based airlines are sticking together…
The Best Way to Bulk Up or Replenish Your Miles
The single most lucrative thing you can do to earn large amounts of miles, quickly and easily, is to sign up for credit cards that offer big up front bonuses. You can cancel the cards within a year if you wish, to avoid paying future annual fees. Just put enough spending on the card to earn the bonus, and then you can get more cards in the future. I like to sign up for new credit cards about every 90 days. And I like to pick one card from each credit issuer each time. I can also often get one of each personal and business card from each at that time. I’ve written about managing good credit to fly and stay cheaply all over the world. If you have good credit you can do this,…
Turkish Airlines and Other Options for Getting to the Maldives
Online Travel Review flags that Turkish Airlines will begin flying to the Maldives on November 24th. This is one of the toughest places in the world to get to on points. The new Turkish service is an 8.5 hour flight on an Airbus A330. Istanbul – Male, 8:25pm – 7:10am+1, Turkish Airlines TK730 Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, Sunday Male – Istanbul, 9:00am – 2:30pm, Turkish Airlines TK731 Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Sunday service With Qatar leaving as a United mileage partner in mid-September, and with securing Qatar bookings becoming increasingly difficult using United miles, it’s nice to see this addition especially for the Star Alliance. The only other significant Star Alliance service to Male is Singapore Airlines via Singapore (though in a pinch one could fly Thai Airways via Bangkok to Colombo, Sri Lanka –…
Bits ‘n Pieces for July 30, 2012
Minor news and notes: Will Run for Miles shares how Chase gave her 5000 points to cancel a card. Point Me to the Plane notes that American has expanded their status match program, they’re now willing to offer Delta Diamond (125,000 mile flyers) top tier Executive Platinum status through February 2013, with an offer to requalify after 45,000 miles flown through the end of the year. American makes their status match decisions on a case-by-case basis, but Delta top tier elites can now consider a switch. Commenter Bob Law discovers a $20 Uber signup credit which is better than the $10 standard credit for being referred by an existing Uber on-demand car service member. This link will register you with promo code YELPSF for the $20 first-ride credit. Delta Points was the first place I…
Excellent Hunan Chinese in Northern Virginia
I’ve been known to go off in search of great dumplings and dim sum when I travel (even here in the States). And living in the DC area I’m blessed with some generally very good Asian foods. My favorite Thai in the area remains Elephant Jumps. You can’t go wrong with anything Vietnamese in the Eden Center. But most of the Chinese seems to taste the same, there are decent carryout places that fill a niche (I’m not sure what niche, exactly, but a niche) but very few Chinese places that reach the heights of the Thai and Vietnamese restaurants in the area. For good Sichuan there’s China Star. And when I lost power at the beginning of the month and stayed out at the Hyatt Fair Lakes I discovered some really good Hunan —…
$200 off at Travelocity Air+Hotel, No Minimum Spend
Reader D.B points me to a Canadian Poker forum that’s discussing a Travelocity promotion code which allows you to take $200 off of an air and hotel package of 3 nights or more, with no minimum spending, valid for travel through December 31. The value proposition here is that you can book a really cheap flight that you don’t bother taking, and have a discount on your hotel stay. Or you book a really really cheap hotel somewhere in the world, and get a nice air discount. The code is NFB2012 and it must be used by August 4th, although it will end earlier once it has been used 3500 times. You can find some particularly cheap hotels in Southeast and in Central Asia. When doing an do advance search. then click that you prefer…
Miles For Car Services… And When You Should Just Say No
New Girl in the Air highlights several ‘miles for car service’ offers. I was particularly interested to see 500 miles for your first use of Groundlink and then 1 mile per dollar thereafter with your choice of American, US Airways, Virgin Atlantic, Alaska, Frontier, Hawaiian, Icelandair, AviancaTaca LifeMiles, or Priority Club (or, apparently, Best Buy). With your first booking you need to use promo code POINTSGL. Within a couple of weeks after you earn miles you’ll receive a ‘claim code’ e-mail from Points.com to redeem your points. Becky also notes offers from ExecuCar (the SuperShuttle car service) and Carmel. I’ve been using GroundLink quite a bit, first when they ran a flash sale via Jetsetter and I was able to grab a San Francisco airport car transfer for $14. And then when I was able…
Milepoint Launches Premium Membership – Miles and Big Benefits
The frequent flyer community Milepoint, which I helped to found last year, today rolled out its new premium membership offerings. Join Milepoint and upgrade to one year of premium membership for $59, and receive: One year of ad-free viewing of Milepoint 2,000 United MileagePlus miles Hyatt Gold Passport Platinum status through Feb. 2014 (existing elites get 2,000 Hyatt points) 1 Year Subscription to InsideFlyer.com One Free Gogo Inflight Internet 24-hour pass A free 3-month trial of Clear A free upgrade to AwardWallet Plus and a free AwardWallet OneCard A free upgrade to UsingMiles Premier Membership And a series of discounts available only to Milepoint Premium Members: 40% discount on “Decoding Air Travel” books 20% discount on “Decoding Air Travel” seminars/webinars 25% discount on “Frequent Flyer Master” e-book 20% discount on ExpertFlyer.com 20% discount on BookYourAward.com…
American AAdvantage Answers Tons of Milepoint Member Questions
As a followup to her live chat on Milepoint, American AAdvantage President Suzanne Rubin went back to her office with all of the questions that didn’t make it in during the evening event and wrote out answers. There were a ton of questions, this was a ton of work, and it’s really appreciated. I went through the Q&A and found several items of interest: They do not anticipate any changes to their award chart. I’ve predicted no changes during bankruptcy at least, and I take them at their word that they don’t have plans to increase the price of award tickets any time soon. They continue to evaluate status matches on a case-by-case basis. Some months ago they began matching United top tier elites to their own top tier status, entirely apart from their usual…
